Lenny Sims: How The King's Speech helped keep her cricket career on track

Italy and Northamptonshire all-rounder, Lenny Sims, spoke exclusively to the Noughtie Child Podcast in this week's latest podcast episode

Harold Larwood is a name which triggers immediate association with the iconic and controversial 1932/33 bodyline series, a title given to the Ashes series where England deployed a fast-bowling tactic, aiming at the body of the batter. It was a series that changed the laws of cricket and left Larwood portrayed as a villain. Just under a century later, Larwood’s great great niece, Lenny Sims, has earned 24 caps for Italy, taken 30 wickets and is a regular for Northamptonshire.

Owing her introduction to cricket from family members much closer in her lineage, Sims got involved with the Staffordshire set up aged 10, only leaving last year to move to Tier 2 side Northamptonshire. “It was a really difficult decision to leave Staffordshire because it was my home county. There was a lot of history there, but it was also fantastic to have the tier two setup where I could have that opportunity to go and play in that standard,” she explained.

Tier Two, now heading into its second season, operates in a semi-professional structure, the counties covering expenses for its players. “The way they phrase it is that you don't have to pay to play,” Sims said. “I think the expenses part is quite important as well, players get expenses to training and matches so that they can afford to go and play at whichever standard that they want to play. It's also great to have S&Cs and physios and analysts involved. I think those additions have been really great.”

With playing in Tier Two not yet being a full-time job, Sims splits her time recently taking up a role at Tier 1 Essex as a Talent Development Lead. Playing Tier 1 cricket is a realistic career prospect for players in the county pathway and Sims is one of the coaches to oversee that progression from U12s to U18s.

“I definitely think my experience comes in handy quite a lot, especially playing back in my days playing for Loughborough Lightning because you see what happens at the top level of the domestic game in the UK,” she explained, reflecting.

A difficult side of the job is delivering the news that players have not been retained to continue with the county programme. “It's not a decision that anyone takes lightly, especially when you're working with players who might only be 12, 13 years old. It can be really tough,” Sims said. “We do have players who come back and are just like a different player because they've gone away, worked really hard. It’s keeping the doors open for those kids and making sure they know that the door is always open for them.”

“I think creating as soft a landing as you can for players is really important. Regular communication through the year plays a massive part of that but we have players go on to do some great things after being deselected, which is fantastic as well.”

Lenny’s personal experience of challenges and setbacks makes her a qualified voice in this area and an important figure to have in these roles. After progressing through the ranks quickly, Lenny found herself in elite environments but struggled with the fact she was now the small fish in a big pond.

“I ended up yipping up when I was 18 and that was really tricky,” Sims explained candidly. “It's the embarrassment side of it which is really, really hard, the lack of awareness, no one really knows what it is. I didn't know what it was when I first got it.”

“I did have a coach at Loughborough Lightning who really tried to help me. He actually, he told me to go away and watch the King's Speech, about this king who had like a stammer and he couldn't deliver his speeches. They got him to put a pair of headphones on and then he was able to deliver his speech perfectly because I think something around redirecting the thoughts in the brain so that what you're doing is becoming less cognitive and more autonomous,” she recalled.

“The next day it was just me and him and in a net and I just bowled for over half an hour, bowled absolutely fine, pitched every ball, landed it, turned it. That was really important because that was the first time where I realised, actually, this isn't me being rubbish. This is just in my head and I can still do it and it wasn't gone.”

The King’s Speech may have been the initial medicine but the ultimate cure was a placement year at Framlingham College where Lenny worked as a cricket coach. “I was just facilitating spin at the kids a lot so I was throwing spin and then I ended up bowling it off one step and it was okay,” she explained.

“It wasn't about me. It was about the kids and facilitating them so I kind of thought no more of it. There was no pressure so just having really high volumes at a really low pressure environment just really helped me to come back from it. It's been quite a journey like that that sounds really short but that was over two years.”

“There is definitely some very ugly videos on NV Play somewhere which, I would probably rather not look back on but it's part of what's made me who I am today and it's nice now that if a kid comes in and in a similar position, that I have that experience to tap into and that understanding of what they might be going through both inside and outside of cricket.”

After regaining some confidence, Lenny stumbled across a social media video produced by Italian Cricketer and content creator Regina Suddahazai speaking about representing Italy. As another British-born Italian, Sims’ interest peaked and a few weeks later she was in her mother’s home country with her cricket kit.

“I think probably naively I didn't even know cricket was a thing in Italy. I didn't think that the program would be anything but I think the thing that stood out to me and still does to this day is the passion over there. It's just something that is taking Italian cricket so far, the passion of the coaches, the passion of the players and everyone is so motivated to be better and work so hard,” she said.

“I can't speak any more highly of the environment. They're just such fantastic people and a really lovely environment to play in as well.”

Fast forward 18 months and Lenny has earned 24 international caps taking wickets against Ireland, Malta, Spain and the Netherlands to name a few. In fact, on debut, Sims registered a three-wicket haul against the Netherlands in a losing cause.

Italy featured in the European T20 World Cup Qualifiers in Rotterdam in August in a bid to secure a spot at the Global Qualifiers in Nepal. Falling short to European giants Ireland and the Netherlands, it was a still a mark of Italy’s progress over the last year. “It felt fantastic playing as part of that team and the emotions around it, especially when we were playing those big games against Ireland and the Netherlands. It’s something different that feeling when you take a big wicket and a couple of games we got really close as well,” Sims said.

Bringing in her own experiences from county cricket in England, Italy have also recruited two Italian-Australians, Chloe Piparo and Annie Wikman, who are both part of WNCL sides back in Australia. “The Aussies were fantastic to have in the side, it's that professionalism and striving for things to be better as well with the way we warm up, the way we organise, the way we plan tactically. They bring so many ideas from all their environments in Australia and it really complemented the environment really well.”

The full conversation with Lenny Sims is available on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/11EL1XIo9xKPqCFyztf5CN